December 22, 2010

Digital Perm from Day 1 to 4

A big change in my life means a big change in hair. Instead of cutting my tresses off I decided to go for the perm. I was originally wanting to get a brazillian blowout, but I was jealous of my sister's curly locks, so I decided against it.

I have gone to Wesley for years now. I can't trust any other hairdresser. When it comes to my hair, he's the boss. He did mention to me that my ends are rebonded so I shouldn't expect the same 'bounce' as the first digital perm. Without feeling too disheartened, I decided to just give it a go. I hate flat hair.

He works at Kenaris, Wheelock. You need to make an appointment with him. He doesn't do walk-in customers, unfortunately.

The curls he was trying to achieve are more 'wavy'. I believe he used medium sized rollers, starting from the top of the ear. Picrure taken from a few Japanese magazines.

There's alot of resources on the internet about the 'digital perm'. I'm not an expert on it, but the curls do look crazy tight. From no volume to too much volume, I got VERY worried. Even with my first digital perm, I didn't expect as much frizz. But my hair has gone through lots of chemicals from colouring, to rebonding, and I'm a regular Bikram 'yogi'. My hair is simply dehydrated. I wonder whether I should have gone for a digital perm in the first place... Anyway, it's too late now. Time to take good care of my locks and make sure it doesn't turn to straw.

The result...

Sorry the picture is dark. This was taken at 9pm. I swear, sitting on that chair for 6 hours was painful. As you can see, the ends of my hair are 'straighter' cos of the lasting rebonded effect. Bloody hell.

So Wesley told me that I could wash my hair after 48 hours... And so I did. I immediately noticed dryness to my ends so I used hair masks. Please refer to previous post on my hair masks.

Day 4 - after 2 washes

My immediate reaction is why my hair colour is drastically lighter? Wesley explained that any perm or straightening job will strip the colour from the hair, making it look much lighter. Lets say, I don't quite fancy this colour hair. There's zero shine. *sulk*

I like these curls. It's smaller than I expected, but it's very Miley Cyrus. Her curls have alot more definition, so I'm planning to buy Sebastian Potion 9 to give my fuzzy curls a bit more 'oomph'!

The top part of my hair is slightly flat and you can see a marked demarcation of the permed and non-permed hair. So for the next few days, I'm hair clipping some of my hair to the back. I hope it softens up eventually. 4 weeks, Wesley said. So yes... I patiently wait...

So what's my hair care regimen for permed hair right now? Well... I will get that done in a separate post. I'm still working on this regimen. It's a bit of a struggle since most of my products are just for natural hair and are not specifically tailored for chemically processed hair. But I will be using hair treatments for the next 2 weeks to pump the moisture back into my ends. Exhausting, yes. But thankfully it's christmas season, so more time to procrastinate (I think?!).

Hello! Im about to get my hair permed and am also a bikram yogi. Im a little worried about what bikram will do to my hair because of the temperature. I would like to keep the locks in as long as possible, without damaging my hair. Any advice?

@Liz: I agree with you that bikram tends to make your ends really dry. I have been using hair masks more regularly (at least twice a week). And another tip I have is to tie your hair into a soft bun so that the hair doesn't get stressed out from the tugging or pulling. Its a difficult choice!